Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has a new lawyer: a member of the defense team for Jared Loughner, the man convicted of killing six people at an outreach event for then-Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) in 2011.

In an order filed Monday afternoon, federal magistrate Marianne Bowler appointed Judy Clarke of San Diego to join three federal public defenders from Boston assigned to Tsarnaev's case. Bowler noted Clarke's extensive experience in death penalty cases and the potential that prosecutors could seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev.

"In light of the circumstances in this case, the defendant requires an attorney with more background, knowledge and experience in federal death penalty cases than that possessed by current counsel," Bowler wrote in her five-page order (posted here).

The addition of Clarke to Tsarnaev's defense is sure to fuel speculation that Clarke will seek to do for the Boston bombing suspect what she helped to do for Loughner: negotiate a guilty plea and sentence of life in prison in exchange for prosecutors agreeing not to seek the death penalty. That task seems harder in a high-profile case where the crime generated widespread public anger and outrage. But Clarke has done just that in other cases.

"They're looking into the lens of life in prison in a box," Clarke said of her clients in a recent speech, according to the Associated Press. "Our job is to provide them with a reason to live."

The Boston federal defenders had also asked to add another defense lawyer, David Bruck of Washington & Lee University Law School in Lexington, Va., but Bowler rejected that request—at least for now. "An additional attorney at this time is neither necessary nor required," she wrote. The magistrate said Clarke had more federal death penalty experience and should be adequate to the task at least until an indictment is filed in the case.